Metal Heart
by RainyDaysAnyways
Summary: Three moments and three words Katniss allows before the Quarter Quell. Brief one-shot. Written for Day 5 of Prompts in Panem's Everlark Week, focusing on one last day.


They are the only three words I can give him in this moment.

"I'll allow it."

My head is resting against his leg, just above the juncture of flesh and metal.

There are thirteen stories of solid steel below us and a hundred tiny tubes of aluminum above, strung up by threads and twisting in the wind. When the pieces clang together, I think I catch notes of "The Hanging Tree."

I have tried to make metal of my heart. It would be better that way—if instead of billions of uncooperative cells of blood and tissue it was a machine that could be turned off and on by just a single switch. It wouldn't fight so desperately for last chances, wouldn't dare my lungs to gasp for breath.

We're not at that precipice, not yet. All is calm. My breathing is easy, and the imperfect muscle in my chest squeezes and lets go, squeezes and lets go, squeezes and lets go.

* * *

"Sorry. Just give me... another... minute."

In this moment, I would give him anything.

He's holding up a little metallic packet, trying to make out the contrast of black ink on gold foil.

Gauzy curtains diffuse the lights of the Capitol skyline coming through the window. I reach for the silver chain that hangs from the lamp by the bed, but he catches my arm and draws me back to him. The perforated edge of the wrapper in his hand scratches my wrist.

He smiles shyly. "Next March."

His fingers are shaking, and they slip a few times on the packaging before he manages a tiny tear in the corner.

I could tell him not to bother. That I plan to be dead long before another heart could grow inside me. But the condom is on now, and his blue eyes are looking at me with wonder, and he's saying my name with such reverence.

So I crawl up the sheets, careful not to rest my weight on that sensitive place where bone and sinew meet titanium, and I swing my own slender leg over his pale stomach.

I place a hand on his chest to steady myself. I feel his heart under my palm, racing every bit as fast as mine.

When I push my hips down—slowly, so slowly—his breathing goes ragged. I sink until our bodies are in perfect alignment.

"Katniss," he whispers, calling me closer still.

I lower my chest to his, aware of the newness of each infinitesimal shift in angle. The tip of my nose grazes his jaw. There's no trace of the golden stubble I remember from past kisses. But it's still him, and it's still me, and right now no one else exists.

I decide to allow myself this transgression.

"I love you."

I say it so quietly that I can't be certain he hears except for the moan that escapes his lips.

"I love you," he tells me, pressing kisses into the tender skin on my neck.

"I love you," he says, brushing loose tendrils off my cheek.

"I love you," he promises, his bright eyes searching my face in the darkness.

Our mouths share hot breath, and I feel his hips beginning to tremble beneath me from the waiting.

When we start to move together, everything that I am is molten.

* * *

This platform cares nothing for my screaming. It is just a piece of cold metal, cut and shaped to the Capitol's dimensions. Merciless. Unfeeling. An instrument operated by remote control, turned off and on by a change in electric current.

I am wailing, "_NO NO NO!"_ But the switch has been flipped, and so it propels me upward, above Cinna's broken body.

I rise into the Arena. There is nothing to shield me from the blazing sun. My pupils shrink to pinpricks. My body sweats in an attempt to cool the blood rushing out from my core to my limbs, readying them to run, swim, flee, fight.

The other Tributes all stand on their own metal plates.

The plan has already been engineered. The pieces are assembled. This should all be mechanical now.

My treasonous heart thuds against my ribcage.

From some place unseen, a disembodied voice continues to count down. I allow myself exactly five more seconds to feel. I send silent goodbyes to my mother and Prim, to Gale, to Effie and Haymitch, to Madge and District 12 and my woods. To all the lungs and leaves on this earth that will go on respiring after I am done.

Peeta is here somewhere, though with the sunlight glaring off the water and the distance between us, I can't see him.

_You will live._

They are the only three words I can give him in this moment.

* * *

_**A/N:** The title is drawn from the song of the same name by Cat Power._


End file.
